Dear LREI Families
I hope this note finds you well after a welcome, though chilly, long weekend. Everyone seemed more well rested and healthier when we returned yesterday. A sure sign that no matter how cold it is, Spring is on its way.
My colleagues and I returned on Tuesday morning to participate in a day-long discussion focused on human cognition, on schools, and on “non-biological intelligence”, as our speaker called it. The day’s work was led by Ulcca Joshi-Hansen, a futurist and educator, a former third grade teacher, and was organized by Assistant Director Allison Isbell with assistance from Middle School Principal Nathan Sokol-Margolis. It was a terrific day, though not easy, nor without challenge, which should be true when growth is the goal. While there were enjoyable moments, both the opportunities and challenges presented by machine intelligence, the changes coming our way, the impact on what we do each day, and the ever quickening rate of change felt daunting and, to be honest, unnerving. More on the details of our work in a later letter as there was so much packed into this one day it will take us a bit of time to distill it for you.
What I want to write about today is my colleagues. During the most challenging moments of the day – challenging professionally and personally – when hearing about the rate of change in the aspects of our professional and personal lives that we hold most dear – my colleagues, your child’s teachers, participated with honesty and candor, with care and expertise. They challenged each other and our speaker, they supported each other, they talked through their questions and concerns and ideas. They learned.
I watched teachers from all three divisions, from the afterschool and members of our professional staff from each “office”, work together in order to experience new tools and new ways of thinking while also reflecting on the ways in which what we do at LREI is setting our students up for future achievement. According to our speaker, so much of what we do at LREI is what will be required to succeed in school and afterward. As our colleagues thought about this and thought about how these skills, so common in progressive schools for over 100 years, would integrate with new technologies, I saw them experience what your children do each day – curiosity, frustration, collaboration, and growth. I was so proud of my colleagues and so proud of what I know happens in each classroom every day.
We have a lot to learn, and always will. I left our gathering yesterday with renewed confidence that we will successfully integrate new types of intelligence into the progressive practices that have served LREI’s students well for 100+ years. As I often say, we have been teaching for the 21st century since 1921.
Peace,
